233 Comments

Win RT is promising, it really is all about the tablet experience. Which is why I don't understand their decision to have the desktop and access to all the underpinnings. Surely a real power user won't limit themseles to RT, and simply go for the 8?

Is it to have developers make desktop-centric arm based apps? That seems counter intuitive. They could have easily made Office into a Modern UI style app. What is the real point in the end? Maybe I missed something.

My only other criticism is little things that sometimes show me lack of focus. 4 edge swipes? Couldn't they have streamlined that down to 2 max? and why must some things just be too hidden, or even not even accessible via the Modern UI? Reply

"Is it to have developers make desktop-centric arm based apps? That seems counter intuitive. They could have easily made Office into a Modern UI style app. What is the real point in the end? Maybe I missed something."

Considering developers can't make desktop apps for Windows RT that isnt it...I'm guessing MS was simply too lazy or "didn't have time" to build a metro equivalent for everything for Windows 8 and will likely continue the work for the next release, as long as the desktop is still there they could also put Office even on RT with minimal effort.

I am really interested in seeing Windows RT with Quad Core Qualcomm S4 Pro. 40% faster CPU, 100% faster GPU than Tegra 3. Power friendly. It should make RT shine even more. In fact I believe that the APQ8064 was made for Windows RT.Reply

"The odds of that situation arising seem relatively low, so my bet is that the strength of the ecosystem will be a non-issue a month from now."

Really? A month from now? Can I hold you to that? It will be at least a year before Metro store gets even tens of thousands of apps. I think you've been reading too many Microsoft PR statements ready, and it's starting to influence your objectivity, and now you're just using Microsoft's words as your own - while thinking to yourself that they are your own words.Reply

So when it was Windows vs Macs back in the 90s, the argument was always that there were more apps on Windows, why would you buy anything else? But now that there are more iOS apps vs Win RT apps, it's that most of them are "fart of flashflight apps"?

More apps isn't just more junky apps -- it means that more experimentation/innovation is happening as well. It means that there are apps being built for the long tail, not just the mass market appeal. Think about apps targeting very specific users, like doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. These apps aren't the ones you see at the top of the charts, but are the ones that sell platforms.

Microsoft more than any other company should understand what Apple has accomplished with the iOS App Store. Reply

Yes and no though. Developer tools are much better than they were in the 90's.

Many of these apps are already cross platform with ios and andriod, and many others already have windows versions or silverlight/wp8/xbox 360 versions that can be ported much easier.

Many of the popular dev tools used by smaller/indie developers already support exporting to different platforms, so if they don't support windows 8 yet, they will soon enough.

Plus Visual Studio is great.

Not to say Apple's accomplishments aren't amazing, they are. Nobody could have envisioned the success they've had in such a short time.

Apps will come. There's no money to be made right now anyways, nobody has devices, it'll all sort itself out in a few months. I think 1 month is optimistic, but within 6 months the apps will be there.Reply

Well, the 90's argument was "1- why pay more 2- for slower, less expandable hardware that 3- is missing some key apps or even whole categories of apps and 4- is fading", so really, a series of issues.In the present case we get , 1- why pay the same or less 2- for slower, but a lot more expendable hardware that 3- has a killer app, though it's missing many key apps and all of the non-key ones but 4- will probably surge.

BTW... Google "75% Of Apple's App Store Is Ignored by Consumers" for a fun fact, if it is indeed true.Reply

No one's going to install 10s of thousands of apps, but if you want an app with a specific feature that doesn't have wide appeal you might not find it unless the ecosystem you're using has 10s of thousands of apps to choose from.Reply

You're confusing depth and breadth. 10,000 fart apps does not mean there *has* to be 1 medical clinic management app, 100,000 10 .. etc etc. I would assume the vertical market devs that most probably already have Windows apps, maybe even XP for Tablet apps, will be rather quick to port them not only to Win8, but to Metro. It will certainly not take a month though, probably more like a year or two, and MS need to prove quickly they can sell their stuff.Reply

No, I'm saying that the fewer apps a platform has, the less likely it is that the platform will have an app with a smaller target audience. It's the classic long tail argument, when there are only a small number of apps they will focus on the fatter head.

Also, I'm not speaking of any platform specifically, just as a general rule.Reply

If you are making reference to the iOS App store, to say most of them are "fart and flashlight" apps is incredibly naive. Sure there are apps that are very basic and/or useless/pointless. But to say they are the majority is laughable.

And does any one person install them all? Of course not. But not everybody has the same wants or needs. So it takes a large pool of apps to make everybody happy.

It will be quite some time before the MS store gets enough apps to have the same coverage. I too think a month is being overly ambitious.Reply

I hadn't seen that story, so I looked it up. It was an estimate by an outside agency (not official numbers), and was 60%, but that's still eye opening.

Although thinking about it, is it really surprising? The more apps available the more crappy apps (or crapps, if you will) available. I would assume such a relationship is common across platforms, at least once some threshold is reached.

What would be really interesting would be a breakdown of those apps. How many were free vs. paid? Of the paid apps, what is the distribution across price?Reply

Laughable? Are you serious? Of course the majority of apps are pointless / crap. Do you really think over 350k of the 700k plus apps available to iOS users are high quality?

Also not surprised at the 60% - 75% of apps never being used estimates. With the sheer volume available I'm actually surprised that number isn't higher. The average user isn't going to dig to find undiscovered gems. They are going to look at top sellers, listen to Leo laporte, and see what their friends use.

I do agree with the argument though that a huge marketplace is advantageous. Even if the vast majority is pointless, there are more of those gems out there.Reply

I think that the pricing of the apps is going to be crucial. If the Windows RT apps are all $10-20 (like the Mac AppStore) then that kills impulse buying and they are not going to be nearly as popular as the IOS apps (typically $1-3). Windows RT will then suffer as a consequence.As mentioned by others this is a platform war and starting a virtuous circle in software development is very tough at this stage of the Tablet market. That is particularly so if developers are targeting the corporate market, which is only a fraction of the consumer market for Tablets.Reply

A good piece of software is certainly worth $10 - $20! People go to the cinema for that price too, right?

A software title that is targeted at impulse buyers, isn't likely to be even worth $1. We don't need 100's of thousands of apps, we need a couple thousand really really good ones and if they cost a bit more that is absolutely fine by me. I'll take quality over quantity anytime.Reply

"This stage of the Tablet market"...I'm not sure what you could possibly mean there. This is the very early stage of tablet development. The iPad was released about 2 and a half years ago, that's nothing and I don't understand why people try to declare a market won when it's that new and still growing very fast.Reply

What I mean is that developers will first write for iPad because it has an installed base of 100 million devices. Only much later will they write for less popular platforms. Some apps may not make it to RT at all. Overcoming the disadvantage of being the less attractive platform is very hard because of the self-reenforcing effects (ask Apple about their experience in the 90s when software support for the Mac faded).Not all is lost for MS, but they do not have much room for error or delay in the tablet space. As for Apple, the technology industry only grants temporary near-monopolies and they will not be on top forever.Reply

I guess if Apple continues their douchery of limiting which development tools developers can use then yeah. (Maybe they stoped that? It was in relation to Adboe tools iirc, not Flash.)

Otherwise cross-platform developing will become the norm, with some necessary differences due to UI or what have you, and other tweaks as devs see fit. MS may provide some great dev tools to make this happen, even if it's just to port over to WinRT, and there are already dev tools to create apps for both WinRT and Win x86.

That last bit is where a lot of WinRT apps will come from. Devs making apps for what will be the huge Win x86 install base and just porting them to WinRT.Reply

I think the crucial points for a platform, and this may sound a bit controversial, are "hackability" and games. That's what jumpstarts a platform. Hackability: an underground scene for free apps and games or for other "illegal" use of the platform/device will lower the barrier of entry and thus increase adoption rate. The amount of people wanting free and illegal stuff can't be underestimated. Games, of course, more than any apps are what people download and buy compulsively. Games are compelling to everyone, from 7 years old to 77 years old users. Games are what people tell their friends about, they promote visibility and popularity of the platform.Reply

Think you hang out with a lot of kids, cause everyone I know doesn't promote games. They promote useful apps. Cardstar, vehicle traffic apps, gas prices around you apps, etc. Well, at least what I saw in the DC/Baltimore area.

Maybe in middle-of-nowhere, where there is barely any traffic, 1 supermarket, 3 gas stations, they don't need such apps and just play games.Reply

How many stupid apps do you actualyl use? I installed about 20 apps when I first got my tablet and have hardly installed anything else. I surf the web mostly, check a little email and play checkers....that's about it!Reply

The argument is that Windows 8 will have a huge install base, therefore developers will write Metro apps for Windows 8. But the review itself admits "for mouse-based navigation, you’re better off treating it as a glorified Start menu", and indeed the 'traditionalist' reply to Win8 critics seems to be "other than the Start screen, you can ignore Metro and just use it like you used Win7." If this is the way people are going to use it, the installed base argument is worthless; all those supposed millions of Windows 8 users are going to be in desktop mode, so there's no incentive to write Metro apps for them.

Metro app development is going to have to rise or fall on the strength of the tablet market, which is a much iffier prospect.Reply

I expect to see the market split between power users / IT workers and consumers.

Professionals requiring the heavyweight software packages (MatLab, Maya, Photoshop, etc) will probably stick with the view that the start screen is nothing but a glorified app launcher.

After an adaptation period however, consumers will find themselves using Metro more and more often and at some point, desktop mode will become irrelevant for many, including those with laptop and desktop PC's. So I do think notebook/desktop sales will help strengthen the market for Metro app developers.Reply

Except that, at least as I read it, Metro vs desktop divides more along 'touch vs keyboard/mouse', not consumer vs power user.

Or to put it another way - while the simplicity of Metro apps might appeal to consumers, that is trumped by the issues trying to use them with a keyboard/mouse. In fact, I'd argue that the Metro environment is *worse* for a keyboard/mouse using consumer, given how so many operations are hidden/not obvious/best used with shortcuts. Windows-C to get the Charms bar is a learned power user trick, not an average user thing.Reply

Have you even looked in the Apple's app store or Google's Play store? It's just tens of thousands of apps that do the same like 10 things and a lot of flash games converted for their respective OS. Majority of them being for non-productive uses.

On my two Android tablets and my Android smartphone, I have like one productive app. Some free office like app, that allows me to open Office docs, but I can't edit them in any way. The rest? Games and photobooks.

Windows RT will definitely be a big step towards making tablets more productive than a big toy. I won't bother. I'm waiting for Windows 8 Pro.Reply

iPad has had the iWork suite since 2010. While that may not matter to businesses entrenched in Microsoft Office, it sure is enough for students that can easily convert anything to PDF and avoid all compatibility issues.Reply

iOS, Android, Windows Phone, WebOS, and every other OS had to build a consumer base from scratch. By extension they had to build a developer base from scratch.

Windows RT doesn't need to do the former and by extension doesn't need to to do the latter. There are guaranteed to be millions of people running Windows 8 in a few month's time. Because Windows 8 didn't divorce Metro from its desktop and because Visual Studio 2012 Express intentionally hobbles the development of desktop applications, the developers that are guaranteed to develop for Windows 8 will be there to fill the App Store.

It can be argued that they'll focus on the development of desktop apps sure but you're basing your opinion on OS's that were never in the same situation as Windows RT.Reply

Gotta agree. I just don't see a huge ramp in 3rd party apps in 1 month. And I fail to what the power of Windows desktop is when RT will be running on ARM.

For the problems MS will have look no further than the Zune except now you are also at an apps/developer support disadvantage.

And it doesn't just matter if RT gets apps but how those apps compare to apps on the other systems. I remember using the Mac 5 years ago when many programs were also on the Mac, but were behind the Windows versions in features and worked worse in general.

That being said I doubt most people use that many apps. We mostly surf and check email on our IPad.Reply

I may be wrong but from what I understand, all the crashes are about third-party apps forcefully closing down. Not native apps, and not a full system crash or anything like that. Presumably that will get better over time, as devs actually learn the platform (updates are getting pushed out daily). Slowdowns seem to have occurred in other videos, only you have a bunch of apps open at the same time.Reply

Not according to other reviews. E.g. Matt Burns at TechCrunch, whose review reads as completely honest and informed, found crashes in the Metro^h^h^h^hodern apps, at least once per app, including MS's. And he found the new IE10 to be less than great.

For the record, I had exactly one random shutdown, and that was when I was switching between two different camera applications at the same time. It seemed forgivable, and other than that I legitimately had no major bugs/crashes when I was testing. My VivoTab RT was really solid from a software standpoint, I don't know what to tell you guys. Reply

I too, am finding myself a bit suspicious of these reviews. I just cant get excited about Windows 8...in any form. There is something about it that disgusts me. Let me try to explain......

Windows 8 was not designed to solve problems for me. It was designed to solve problems for Microsoft - namely competing against Apple mobile devices and Google's web services. The only major new functionality is a UI that can driven by a touch screen - (Compete with Apple) and the new Start Screen which is huge billboard directing witless users to Microsoft Web services (Compete with Google.) What does Windows 8 do for me, the guy who runs Windows 7 on a single 27" monitor with a Mouse and Keyboard?

Many people have told me that the tiles will be great. Really? I think that Gadgets are better, as I don't need to leave my desktop for a simple status update! That Metro apps will be great - you can run two apps side-by-side. I can run many apps side-by-side in Windows 7. I have read that touch screen laptops will transform the Windows experience. Not for me, I don't want to look through a hundred finger smudges to see my work.

The UI is definitely NOT gorgeous! The overuse of inky pastel colors makes me cringe every time I look at it. The removal of glass Windows and drop shadows make the desktop look old, flat, and boring. Please don't give me the "Simple and Elegant" argument - its not that!

I fear that all my ranting is for naught. No matter what I say, type, or do it won't matter. Windows 8 will be a resounding success because there is simply nothing else the PC OEMs have to sell. Microsoft will no doubt take the stage at this fall's BUILD conference and proclaim that they were right.

Sadly for me I cannot agree. Windows 8 is where I and Microsoft part ways...forever! I'd like to think that the break up was amiable, but that's not what happened.

So how exactly is this no-third-party-desktop-apps thing enforced? Are they simply relying on the fact that people haven't recompiled EXEs from Intel to ARM (no enforcement)? Are they restricting the availability of the compiler (but they need a native compiler for folks like driver developers)? Are they whitelisting EXEs? Or must EXEs have a certain digital signature before they are allowed to run?Reply

I would love to see more detail on this as well. The filesystem is completely open, which means that anyone can extract existing EXEs off the system and place new ones on there as well. This is way different than the iOS model, for example.

I'm predicting that we'll shortly see the ability to build desktop apps for ARM and the ability to sideload apps on RT. There are tons of people who know Windows inside and out, along with a huge desire to bypass this restriction.Reply

I'm sure that if executable is not digitally signed with MS certificate, it wont run. And they wont be releasing that certificate with Visual Studio, so in theory nobody will be able to compile binary-applications that will run on WinRT.

There are definitely going to be people looking ways around this restriction from various kind of cert crackings to fullblown jailbreaks, so actual situation for 'tech enthusiasts' remains to be seen.Reply

Can you please, post in a couple weeks, how the windows 7 folder and user folder size increase. Windows have gone fatter and fatter out of control, even my win7 gone from around 10gb to 20gb with tmp folder cleaned.I this happens i think it will be a mood killer to a lot people when they have 32gb or 64gb available on tablet. I think It would be interesting to see if performance decreases overtime (like most of the time happens with windows), something that doesnt really happen with android/iOS tablets and if the system folders size continue expand out of control.Reply

Win Vista was the king of the bloat. Win7 was smaller than Vista, win8 is smaller than 7, and RT is even smaller than windows 8. The only real big balloons in size were from 3.1 to 95, and then from XP to Vista. I obviously have not played with RT myself, but win8 on the desktop side of things runs pretty smooth on even the most limited of hardware. The slowest thing I have tried it on so far was an old Pentium 4 (no HT), with an ancient 60GB HDD, but I did cram in 2GB of ram. It seems that so long as you have that magic 2GB or more of ram, it will run on just about anything. It even made my old netbook work great, and my slightly newer touch screen netbook really flew (though I was annoyed at the resolution requirements for multitasking and metro apps).

If that bloat is limited to the winsxs folder, don't worry. Windows creates so-called hardlinks to other files there, such that those files will effectively exist in multiple locations in the folder structure at once. Additional hardlinks only take a small amount of extra space, but they make determining "the size of a folder" tricky, because files no longer uniquely belong to a folder.

Instead of looking how much the windows folder grows, look at how much space is left.Reply

i am not really metro pro or metro con since I havent tryed it out yet. but if i look at reviews i can just use my desktop as in windows 7 but I have one particular question about the desktop mode in windows 8 namely how is the old search function from the start menu implemented. I mean 60% of the time i just start stuff from pinned programs on the taskbar but the other 40% of the time I just do the following:

-windows key , type and launch program/document , this has been for me the fastest , is that still there?

Sorry, sweeping generalization, but I can't think of a class I took in the first two or three years of undergrad that an RT system wouldn't have been adequate for. Only after you start getting into the upper division classes do you start having a lot of non-Office computing needs. Reply

the general public using facebook only are going to keep buying iPads, not windows tablets with physical keyboards.

ARM's power consumption advantage is very marginal: the medfield based RAZR i has shown better standby than the almost identical RAZR M, as well as amazing talktime and slightly better video reproduction power consumption; where it fares worse is normal screen-on usage, but overall, it's hardly worse.

So although there still aren't tests available of the newer dual core, I see no reason to expect worse standby power consumption (considering how intel manages to turn cores off completely); also cloverfield supports connected standby, which both ARM and RT do not, and it seems to be a pretty big deal to me.

Clovertrail will run standard windows 8 (call it home premium if you will) which is as full as it gets unless you consider the pro features essential: it will still be able to run windows 8 pro anyway so it's up to OEMs to offer that version preloaded.

As far as I know, the only difference between clovertrail tablets and standard PCs is that the software will be preloaded and the bootloader locked (there is no SATA support anyway); so with the exclusion of other OSs, you will be able to run all the x86 software you want.

So, to the original question: why in the world would I prefer an ARM solution?Reply

The only thing with Clovertrail is that it comes out to around $200-250 more if you want Office and a keyboard attachment. See $599 VivoTab RT/Surface RT versus the Samsung Series 5 Slate (or whatever they're calling it in the US - ATIV something or other.)

It's an 11.6" Clovertrail tablet that goes for $749 with the dock. Looks great, too. But the thing is, you toss in Office 13 on top of that (because it's Windows 8, that's not included) and then the price ends up going from iPad range (RT) to ultrabook range (Clovertrail.) Reply

The clovertrail basically has the same price as the windows RT. the Acer W510 and Asus Vivo smart all cost 499. The surface RT is also 499 without the keyboard. But what i really don't understand is why those low end netbook level tablet are all much more expensive then the netbook, it make no sense to me. The article said the clovertrail and tegra 3 are actually half of the price of conventional ATOM which are used in all those cheaper netbooks. The netbook has more expensive processors (40 to 20), mother board (less integration), harddisk (320G harddisk is more expensive than the 32G SSD) and some other staffs (keyboard, big battery, touch pad). The only thing more expensive on the tablet is the display, but I don't think the display could cost 200 more then the display on the netbook. Reply

I've wondered about that as well. For a very marginal bit of extra weight and thickness and a bit less battery life, you can get a CT based tablet. That should have an enormous advantage in horsepower. I just wish there were some reviews of the CT devices. Hopefully soon. The only advantage I see with RT is the included Office.Reply

1. What's the Windows Experience Index (WEI) score? Could you put a screen capture of the individual ratings too?

2. Is System Restore on by default? What's the default reserved space for it?

3. Would you run some demos (or as many as you can) from IE Test Drive website for both Metro IE & Desktop IE and post the resulting FPS/scores here? Then compare the same demos on Atom's Win8 tablet and also maybe an x86 desktop/laptop Win8 system.

I really hope a Modern UI app is made, it would be an excellent tool especially the bench tool. There are already quite a handful of tech site apps and they do a fairly good job of placing the website in tablet format.Reply

If the price was better (i.e. $100 cheaper), I would easily go for the RT. I cannot imagine the Surface Pro replacing my full-time machine anyway, both in terms of screen size (my laptop is currently 13") and raw power.Reply

That's a question that can be answered when more viruses are being written for ARM platforms. As it stands now, virus's we see on regular x86 machine really won't be able to execute on ARM platforms.Reply

Does anybody think it's realistic to get something like Chrome or Firefox into the windows app store? I like IE10 but (like Anand/Vivek) have always been a chrome guy. The ability to just "click" a tab to switch is really valuable for 10+ tabs open. Anybody share hopes for chrome or firefox to be developed for RT?

Also: did you all notice any slowdowns when having like 10+ tabs open, or did you try it out ever?Reply

I know there is a Chrome install for the Modern UI in the regular windows 8. That works great since I can use adblock and certain script blockers. I did see Google search in the store so it may only be a matter of time before Chrome shows up there for RT devices as well.Reply

I forgot about the base 10 versus base 2 conversion, which affects every single device of any kind out there (no one headline advertises base 2 sizes), but that still leaves over 4GB 'missing' even before the OS install. 4GB is a lot of non-video media or space for apps (I imagine app size is comarable to other ARM OSes because of Windows Phone.)

Perhaps that's why we're seeing such memory sizes and pricing for Windows tablets, to make them comparable to other OSes, but companies can put flash for the same price in other tablets as well. Maybe they will and just enjoy better margins, or maybe they will and just price them lower.Reply

One of the things that's held me back from buying an Xbox is that it's $5/month to be a member of their community, so that you can chat with friends, have trophies saved, play multiplayer games, etc. As opposed to free with the Playstation Network, for example.

Is there any kind of implicit tax like that in order to use this as a gaming device? If you don't have an Xbox and don't join any such paywall-portal, do you lose access to any games, or capability within any games you do have?Reply

You will never install anything on RT that is not Microsoft approved and they will get a cut of the money too. Unsigned apps cannot be installed on RT - and only apps sold specifically to YOU on the MS App store are signed.

But no, there won't be a monthly fee just to have a Surface tablet. The apps you want to run might...Reply

The review seems to indicate that Windows RT is an OS for desktop computing, but with a touch layer. But what does touch add to desktop computing? In what situations would a Windows RT tablet be preferable to a Windows 7 ultrabook? Or is it just a question of a Windows RT device being cheaper (especially taking into account the bundled Office) by much more than it is worse?Reply

That's the argument that I did not really understand. To me, the clearest distinction between computing pre-Android/iOS and the computing those OSs have now enabled, lies not in how you do things (with gestures and touch) but in what you do. I used "desktop computing" in my initial post in the sense of activities one would do at a desk, to the exclusion of the outside environment. Android and iOS ('mobile', 'post-PC', whatever) seem to me to instead focus on tasks that augment one's environment. Google Now or the iPad's use as a flight bag, or Kindle's textbooks (or even messaging services that are more SMS than IRC in spirit) would, to me, be emblematic of the new approach.

What you praise WinRT for -- multitasking, (computer-centric) productivity, etc. would to me be very 'desktop' (again, in the sense above) centred. Given that, they are already very well (IMHO, better) served by Win7. Hence my original question -- what does touch (especially at the expense of lower power and a smaller screen) bring to the game? What does it do better than an ultrabook?Reply

Having used the Windows 8 beta on an Asus EP121 tablet, I can attest to what Vivek is saying. To me Windows 8 (any version) on a tablet, at a minimum, extends the capability of what we might call the 'traditional' tablet (e.g., iPad, Andriod) by allowing me to use it effectively for productivity apps like Office. Trying to write long e-mails, online posts, word docs, etc. on an iPad, for example, is an exercise in extreme frustration to me. No such issue on Win8.So to me Windows RT offers an expanded tablet experience, if you will, and full-blown Windows 8 on a powerful tablet allows me to ditch all of my other tablets and notebooks in favor of a single device. A Haswell version of something like the Asus Transformer Book is what I'll be waiting for.

Well for starters (imo), battery life and portability. Find a 600$ ultrabook constructed as well as surface. You won't. Many people have given it the same quality as Apple's products.

You can't compare things one to one and expect something reasonable. In a world where surface and ultrabooks are the only things that exist, and specs are all that matters, yes, ultrabooks come out on top.

Look at the ipad though. Sure, it has apps. But x86 has WAY more. x86 is WAY more powerful. But more people buy the iPad than many windows computers. Tablets (despite being low power) are cannibalizing the PC market. Why is this?

All day battery life, family friendly media consumption, etc. Sure, an ultrabook does all of this - so why doesn't it sell as well? Tablets have a certain appeal - being able to sit in bed and lay on your side and watch netflix without worrying about a keyboard for example. Having 10+ hours of battery life while internet browsing (many notebooks, even ultrabooks, achieve half that).

Now look at Surface. Don't compare it JUST to an ultrabook. Do both. It's bringing a level of productivity to tablets that never existed. I (as a student) can take Surface and take notes with it in class on Office, and watch movies in bed with it. Tablet's have an appeal because they excel at their tasks - media consumption and (now) basic productivity. You don't *need* more power for those things. If you have more complex needs, then of course you need a laptop.

But if all you do is Netflix, office, and the occasional game, + internet browsing, (me), there's no difference. Surface can do all that and be more or less just as smooth. Applications might take longer to load, but that's a one time thing that can even be improved with software optimization. I have a desktop for more powerful needs (gaming, programming).

PCs have always been more powerful, but their sales are declining. That's because the average consumer (a media consumer, not a power user) puts more emphasis on portability than having a quad core i7 - they don't need that much power. Reply

..."Tablets (despite being low power) are cannibalizing the PC market. Why is this?"...

IMHO, because number of activities that can be done with a computer >> number of activities that can be done on a computer. I really think the consumption vs. creation framing is a misunderstanding – the thing actually being measured is how much of the creation is done on the computer (e.g. read an interesting article, form a new insight into a problem you have been trying to solve), and that is not, I believe, of significant importance.

..."Tablets (despite being low power) are cannibalizing the PC market. Why is this?"...

I'm not sure that tablets are cannibalizing PC sales. I think instead PC sales have remained stale as for several years now the hardware has been powerful enough for the average user to do just about anything they need on their computer. This means that instead of buying a new PC every two to three years, you've now got that money available to purchase something in addition to your existing and perfectly capable PC. More times than not that extra purchase will take the form of a tablet or e-reader these days, IMO. So in essence I think overpowered PCs are helping to drive tablet sales. :)

I would tend to agree with that. I think they will have some impact on PC sales in the cases where the PC would have been bought solely for somebody to browse Facebook with.

I have no interest in giving up my PC though, even as I type this post out on a Nexus 7. I use this thing mostly for web browsing and watching Netflix when I don't want to have to sit at a desk. My desktop PC does everything else.Reply

You didn't point out that there are real limitations with the Office included in the Surface RT ... no macros/plug-ins, and you can't use it for any work-related tasks unless there's a separate license for Office 13 in place.

Notice that last comment - many reviewers are glossing over this - you need a license for Office 13, not a previous version, to use it for work tasks. If your company hasn't upgraded, you can't (legally) use it for anything for-profit.Reply

But it has particular relevance here, because of the way the Surface RT has been viewed (and reviewed) as a business tablet ... but there's been little discussion of these limitations.

For example, I haven't seen a single review point out that if your company has only licensed Office 2010, you don't have the necessary license to permit (legal) use. Do you, Spivonious? Has your company upgraded? Mine hasn't ... and our customer sites still use 2003, many of them.

And ... a key difference is that most business licenses permitted installation of the full suite on people's PCs at home -- eliminating the concern about macros/plug-ins/forms/3rd party apps. That's simply not possible here.Reply

Yeah the bundled Office RT gives no extra value for companies. That is because it is a "Home and Student" version. But that is no different than the "traditional x86 Office Home and Student" license -- you cannot use that for work either (even non-profit organizations), even if you buy it.

(Whether people follow or ignore the license restriction is a separate issue ...)Reply

See my reply above for why there is a big difference in this case ... most business licenses permitted an employee to install a copy on a home PC, for business use. That simply won't be possible here.Reply

I really wish you could have looked closer at Live Messenger and specifically Video. My parents use Live Messenger since it is easy for them and so do most of the people I know internationally. Skype is a great application, however for them it isn't easy or familure. This is why I continue to need Live Messenger while still using Tango for most phone to phone calls. The best option would be to have Live Messenger Video available on my WP7, but it is just chat and even then some messages just don't get through.Reply

I don't know why people find metro so weird - instead of having a ~90*400 or whatever pixel menu that gives you 10 programs to select, you have all your programs, and you can STILL just type away and the search function works exactly as it does in win7, you don't actually have to type anything extra.

Windows key + calc + enter would still bring up the calculator, for example.

Vivek and Anand got it right imo - think of it as a glorified start menu.Reply

While it's not hard, per-se, to me it feels awkward with a mouse, but just about perfect on a touch screen. IMO the icons are way too large for desktop mouse use - especially when you're used to hitting 1/4" icons on a 40" screen. :-p

You could always use a touch mouse like those from Microsoft, they are just not doing anything to promote it or it's usage scenarios i.e. gestures via mouse or trackpad. Capactive touch on a notebook-formfactor does nothing really so I don't get why they just don't turn to gestures, Apple handle that fine. With a touch mouse you can get all the Windows 8 functionality even if they assume you use fingers. Like charms, switching apps, app commands, scroll left to right and so on. But the MS Touch Mouse is also a 80 dollar device which ships with no systems.

So sadly they fail to grasp how users will use these systems. Even though they do promote keyboard and multi-touch trackpad with the Surface. You really understand why major companies, component suppliers and OEM's are wary when it's an unpolished mess. I get why they try to target touch, just not why they try to just fill that space by putting an separate environment on top of the other and keeping them as separate ecosystems which are very hard to move between it's easier to port to an entirely different system which isn't an abstraction of Win32! If you don't innovate with gestures and new navigational features across the whole system it just seems stupid. You quickly get ten ways to do the same thing also. It would have made more sense if it didn't try to be Windows.Reply

New Windows 8 machines have touchpad gestures that mirror the on-screen gestures. It's up to trackpad manufacturers to update their drivers to support gestures on older devices, but I assume many of them will.Reply

I think people underestimate the numbers of apps we're likely to see in the future. Windows phone 7 library grew to over 100000 apps despite having miserable number of units sold in the market. We will see more surface tablets and Windows 8 computers sold in the next 3 month than Windows Phone 7 ever has. The market for developper is there.Consider also the languages being supported here. You know C#, VB.net, Java, HTML5, you can do a metro app. I guess many Windows software can be recorverted to metro relatively easily. I'm not a developper, i'm just a geek and an economist, but i think Microsoft has the most developper-friendly environment out there. And many, many webservices like netflix, facebook, pulse will have a metro app down the road. Many, many iOS / Android apps are little more than rebagadged web pages after all. So you will see them on Windows 8/RT, and even more, the existance of these apps, like netflix being i think more beautiful in Metro than in a web browser, will become a reason for people to upgrade to Windows 8.Sure the era of Microsoft monopoly over computing devices is over. But there are today some 1.3 billions PCs out there versus 100million iPads, the battle is not over by a wide margin.

That being said, i'm still waiting for my Haswell tablet with a Wacom digitizer.Reply

It's not just the number where Windows Phones is lacking, but the quality and functionality. Where are the Garageband clones for WP? Where is the full touch-based office suite you get with iWork? Reply

I go to the Windows Store.. I see the Surface RT Advertisement.In 2 seconds I should be able to determine from that page what Applications are available for the Surface RT, before I agree to Pre-Order one for $699 (64GB version). I should be just that easy...it should be more consumer oriented. But it's not.

Huge Failure. Sorry.

So, I click software... I click finance... Is there anyway to quickly determine which one of these is available for Windows8RT? Quicken, Quickbooks, Sage? No... there isn't. So, I have to waste allot of time....

Who's going to pay $699 for a device when they can't easily check which applications are available. This is a huge failure and AnandTech has really glossed over it.... Disappointed in you guys!Reply

let me click on this other one... select details... whoops not for RT...tada...

Your right.. this is so easy... I love this hunt and peck method of finding apps for Windows RT... this is the most amazing applications store I've ever seen... and I'm so glad that I don't have anyother means of purchasing apps for RT..Reply

Now, I wouldn't care if the apps could be purchased other places... but it's a closed eco system and I have to buy them from the Microsoft Store... SO it should be easier to see what's available.... for Surface with Win8RT... And it's not easy!Reply

Yeah, the windows 8 store needs work. As Anand said, it's hard to find the good stuff unless you specifically search for it. Also the updates section doesn't tell you anything about the update before installing it (not that I could tell anyways). And I didn't see any way to keep you're apps up to date automatically, or roll back to previous versions if you had a problem etc.

The store is usable, but probably the weakest of the built in apps.

Another thing about the store that bugs me is that when you look through a list of apps it doesn't indicate which ones you have installed already or provide a way to filter out ones you've already got. Why would I want to see the ones I've already got?Reply

In the review, you basically dismiss the serious problem they have with app selection by saying "it'll come soon", and point to all the millions of Windows 8 PCs their going to sell over the next year or so as the reason.

I understand that, but I'm still VERY skeptical.

The problem isn't that they're going to sell Windows 8 PCs. The problem is this:

If you are an existing Windows developer, what is going to motivate you to completely throw away your existing products and start over again to develop against the WinRT APIs in order to release a Modern UI style application that will run on Windows 8/RT and be sold through the app store?

* You're still going to have to continue to sell and develop your existing applications, for everyone who DOESN'T upgrade to Windows 8. It isn't like those shiny new Modern UI apps are going to run on my Windows 7 PC at home, no anyone else's.

* All of the Windows 8 systems sold will still run your desktop application fine, so then you get the benefit of the massive pre-existing installed base of Windows users.

* The ONLY people "left out" if you don't develop a WinRT-based Modern UI application will be owners of Windows RT devices.

So... If you're Adobe, or any other big development house, what do you do?

You wait and see. Re-writing Photoshop or AutoCAD, if it is even possible in the Modern UI, is no small challenge. Expecting these companies to drop everything and start over from scratch, and do it quickly, seems... Naive.

I expect we'll see a lot of developers of existing cross-platform apps (iOS and Android developers) adopt Modern UI. Everything else? I wouldn't expect an RT-friendly version of Photoshop, Lightroom, or Quicken anytime soon, if ever. It'll all depend on sales of Windows RT devices.Reply

Well the trend has been that mobile devices like smart phones and pad has become much, much more important. It is not hard to see that they will be more important and that there will be much more mobile devices than normal desktops in the future...

What Joe average do with their computers? They read mail, they read some web pages and show and watch pictures from their children chindrens... What is the best device for that... Mobile computer. It is pity, but hard working picture editors, writers and gamers are tiny minority.Summasummarum, there will be a lot of Modern UI aplications, much more that there will be normal desktop applications.Reply

There will be plenty of Windows RT capable apps soon because Microsoft is going to sell a bunch of Windows 8 desktop PCs, so there will be a huge built-in ecosystem. And look at all these existing Windows developers we already have.

My answer is:

Maybe.

But all those Windows 8 desktop PCs will not run the Modern UI style apps optimally, and they will also run "normal" Windows applications. You can't port desktop apps to WinRT (the API), and they won't work on Windows RT devices. And, a huge portion of those new Windows 8 boxes are going to go to businesses (like mine) where they're immediately going to be re-imaged to Windows 7.

If you are a current Windows developer, what is your motivation to do all the work to "start over" with a brand new product, if most of your CURRENT customers can't use it at all (they're on XP or Windows 7), or won't use them much because they're on traditional desktops and laptops?

The path of least resistance is to just keep developing your traditional Windows desktop application and wait and see what happens.

Is Microsoft in a better position than RIM or Palm was to expand their new ecosystem? Sure. But it is a few years later too. And they're competing with an established, massive ecosystem on two fronts (iOS and Android).

I'm not saying "it will never happen." But I don't think it is a sure thing. And I don't think the "they'll run on Windows 8 too" is as big of an ace-in-the-hole as Anand and Vivek seem to think. It'll help, but I think they'll need a LOT of help and some luck.

If Windows 8 gets a bad rep (deserved or not) like Vista from consumers on desktop and laptop machines, and OEMs keep selling lots of Windows 7 machines, they could be in for a world of hurt.Reply

Yes, agreed 100%. This review seems to be by far the most certain the *metro* apps are going to grow by leaps and bounds than any other review I've read. I think there's definitely a chance RT and thus metro apps aren't going to take off at all.Reply

Thanks for yet another sane and unbiased review. I find this approach the most helpful when considering a new purchase. You guys continue to have clear vision when it comes to the big picture and you don't get distracted by small details that will probably get ironed out in future iterations of the device.It looks like MS has a winner here.Reply

While this is an overall very good and comprehensive review, I am still confused by two separate Windows 8 OS (with Windows Mobile 8 may be third). I just don't see how they are going to coexist long term. And if there will be convergence, which OS will be left out.I was hoping review would touch on those issues a bit more then spending page after page describing various apps that come built in and will undergo a significant change/enhancement shortly anyway.Reply

Well the Metro UI aplication will be very popular in Mobile platforms. Because both windows 8 versions can run those, there is no problem in there. If you want to run normal desktop application, video editing, AAA games, the normal 86 version of win8 is for you.If you have to chose between normal win8 and win8 RT pad, or tablet there is not very big difference. In most cases it is better for programmers to make Moder UI version of their program than to make only Intel CPU based version that runs only in normal win8 version. Thre will be more customers in Modern UI platform than normal. So instead of having bottle neck with old gaming consoles, the new botleneck will be the slovest win8 RT pad in most cases.If you are serious gamer the normal win8 is for you. If you are interested in just getting pad for playing casual games like Angry bird, and reading www-pages, listening music, looking viodeos, etc, it does not matter what you get, if the price is good and ahrdware desent.Reply

I am interested, reading and taking notes but is this Windows RT a netbook-nettop OS at a higher price point?

I think I will wait at least 2-4 years to consider an ARM-Atom based computer to produce even some light work, as for a device to have fun there are tablets, Nintendo, PSP, iDevices with thousands of apps or games. WRT is not that cool, it does nothing better as an entertaining system but it may be great to produce very light or limited work on the office and just probably on the go but even for that it will need to compete with entry-laptops and ultralight machines.

Right now this is a very hybrid concept targeting for a broad marked but I just can see a niche market I am sure it will reach. I think in part the price is to high and it will be kind of a business ultra light high end system.Reply

I assume you're not including iPad sales - which is very misleading for a tablet OS review. And if you're more broadly talking Windows 8 all of a sudden (RT != 8), the overwhelming majority of Windows sales are to businesses - and those businesses are going to exercise their downgrade rights and not touch Windows 8 with a ten-foot pole. There's no business case for it over Windows 7, and the training is far from insignificant. It's not going to get any headway there for years.

Consider be very skeptical on actual uptake of Windows 8 or its supposed marketshare. I'll bet it's six months to a year before I see the first person using it (which may say more about how many of my PC-using friends have converted to iPads and Macs). I fully expect every Windows PC I see to be on 7 for a long time to come).Reply

The search in the charms bar can be used for that. When in the store bring up the charms bar and click on the search icon. Then type your app name or search by company name and the results will show for the store.

If this is true, then Anand's/Vivek's complaint of not being able to see all apps by a certain developer is null. As far as I'm aware, typing in the developer name in the search bar is the only way to find apps by a specific developer in the Apple Appstore as well.Reply

Several years ago this was true. The first netbooks were notorious for it.

It has not been an issue for quite some time now with TRIM support in all modern NAND devices used in mobile consumer devices. As long as your SSD/NAND device is not more than about 3 years old you won't have the problem.Reply

You're right that it depends upon the drive controller. However mobile device embedded storage doesn't use standard SSD controllers, they use eMMC which are much less capable and lower performing. It is a valid question because of this.Reply

"I’ve seen a lot of early reviews of Windows RT-based tablets decry the app situation, but I’m assuming the growth will occur significantly more quickly than it has for, say, Windows Phone, for one simple reason: this is still Windows. A very different kind of Windows, yes, but it’s not like people will stop buying Windows computers. Windows Phone has had issues gaining marketshare over the last two years, but starting tomorrow, 85% (or more) of computers being sold worldwide will be running either Windows 8 or Windows RT. There are too many people out there with new Windows systems for developers to somehow just stop releasing Windows applications"...................

It's a breath of fresh air reading this from a reviewer. At least someone gets it. I can honestly claim now that ANY reviewer who doesn't mention this FACT is either blind or a biased fanboy of another platform.Reply

Aesthetics is not an area that is anywhere near being completely subjective. For instance, eye tracking research has found that men look at crotches and women don't. There is a lot of psychology involved in designing an attractive and usable interface. Unfortunately, a lot of designers think aesthetics is a more subjective field than it is. Many think, erroneously, that what works well on paper works well on the screen, too.

Microsoft has managed to clutter up what could have been a decent tablet with remnants of an aging operating system. Can you imagine Apple putting a few hooks to the OSX desktop into its iOS tablets that don't give much of the functionality of OSX? A DOS prompt in a tablet, give me a break!

Let's face it. Tablets are basically big phone technology. They're not computers in any real sense. Apple recognized this. They had a successful phone and they configured a tablet from it. Doing any significant input or serious analysis on a phone or tablet is a non-starter. You need a decent keyboard and special purpose software for many different kinds of tasks a full blown computer can do.

There is a third approach. Windows and OSX have become beasts of the tech world with complicated user interfaces to give the flexibility and power to do complicated tasks. An alternative to the phone/tablet approach, which is basic output only driven, are devices like the Chromebook which relieve casual users of burden of complexity by doing most of the work in the cloud. This dramatically reduces the learning curve for new users and frees them of the busy work of backups, updates, and security considerations. It can mean cheap, light weight systems with no moving parts that perform both input and output in the simplest possible way. Novice users are put off by the complexity of full blown computers and even by the complexity of modern smartphones and tablets.

Microsoft could have been successful by keeping RT a tablet version of Windows Phone and coming out with a web based verson of Windows like Chromebook. These devices haven't taken off like tablets due to the fact that the user experience with phones easily transferred to tablets, while Google didn't have a base in the full blown computer world to build on. But, there is an audience out there, particularly new users and older users that are tired of putting up with the complexity, lag, and busywork associated with bloated full blown operating systems they don't need to do a little writing, emailing, and multimedia watching. The new $249 Samsung Chromebook that just came out sold out everywhere in a couple days. The new RT devices are twice as costly and twice as complicated to get up to speed on for people looking to continue their quite simple use of a computer for a little emaling, writing, and multimedia watching. Who needs a touch screen for that. It just gets in the way.

The Windows 8 systems are another story. There you get full computing power and the functionality of a tablet in one package. This will fit a wide audience of sophisticated computer and smartphone users. Reply

Eventually someone is going to release either a compiler or binary translator or emulator or something that lets you convert a visual studio project to RT. Or even run the x86 executable itself. Right? I should be able to compile my own sleep.exe and launch it from a batch file. How can they stop that, and why would they?Reply

"If you’re really concerned about the state of third-party apps, you just have to wait and see. I’ve seen a lot of snap judgements made about Windows RT in the last couple of days based on the dearth of good applications in Windows Store, and while I agree with that sentiment, I feel like it’s extremely shortsighted to write off the ecosystem already. Neither version of the OS has gone on sale yet, and we know that there are a number of applications that will go live on the official release date, as well as many more coming in the weeks ahead."

Exactly what I was thinking when reading the complaints on The Verge and some other sites. They claim there are no apps, and I'm thinking...well, technically there is no Windows RT yet for anyone because it's not out yet! And as a developer, I know how they think. Why release something earlier than you have to? You want as much time as possible to work on code and QA. If no one but some media and beta testers don't have the OS yet, what's the rush to release a version 1.0 app? So these sensationalist pseudo-tech editors can rip your early app apart too?Reply

Fantastic review. From this point of view I can now clearly see corporate boardrooms across the world with RT based tablets sitting on the desks. I can see people carrying them all around the office. I think that is where RT will win big. I see corporates creating their own RT apps for employees to access. This review along with Anand's on Surface reconfirms to me that Windows has just paved the way to dominate the office market for a few years to come. Will this mean that people will then use this single device across all their needs? No so sure given the number of gadgets we tend to collect, I still think will find a space. With Office 2013 for ARM being made available, Android too will have the capabilities of RT in the future. All in all, the future is interesting.Reply

Really REALLY hope the folks over at VLC or many of the android video players get an app onto windows RT for mkv playback! Almost any anime is in this format with advanced subtitles, and itd be absolutely amazing to have this tablet on my daily university bus commute if it supported those video files :)Reply

that the review for the yearly refresh of iOS got a much greater, in-depth review than the first-ever version of Windows running on ARM, including the fact that it's on a Microsoft-designed/spec'd tablet. "Hey, let's do three pages worth of review just on the new Maps app, but nothing in Windows RT deserves that type of in-depth analysis at all!"

There appears to be no end in sight to the massive time investment towards all things Apple on Anandtech while everything else gets filler articles/reviews at best...Reply

"It’s unclear how big this convertible/hybrid market will grow, but I see real potential here."

Keep dreaming.....

"The iPad and iOS remain a very polished, very accessible platform that is really optimized for content consumption and light productivity. For anyone who wanted more however, there’s now an alternative: Windows RT."

"The default inclusion of Office 2013 and the emphasis on physical keyboards makes Windows RT the first tablet platform to significantly address the question of productivity."

Reading this review, it strikes me that people at Anandtech either are totally biased towards Windows (which wouldn't be new, see also the Surface review) or they've never used an iPad. I put my money on the first one. Because you can't possibly claim that the iPad is less productive than a tablet with Windows RT, you really can't unless your are out of your mind.

There is nothing that makes Windows RT more productive than iOS because you seem to have missed that it's iOS which has the productive apps today. Windows RT has nothing, nothing, and it will stay like that for a long time. If you want to be productive with a tablet today, you get an iPad not a tablet with Windows RT, period. iOS has productive apps that cover everything from video, audio production to art, photo workflows and text editors, CAD, etc.. All of them are optimized for touch. With Windows RT, to be productive you just get Office that you really can't use freely because of the restricted license. Office forces you to use a keyboard attached to a tablet and because such keyboards are very limited, you can't really use it with an attached keyboard either. What a mess.....

"Combined with the equally advanced task switching and multitasking built into the UI, and this becomes the first legitimately useful tablet operating system out there."

Then you are really not making sense, it's amazing. The multitasking on Windows RT is nothing better than iOS, it actually works the same way. The only thing is that it allows to put a stripped down app besides another one but this feature is not very useful on tablet screens. And this feature only exists because Windows RT has a fundamental flaw that this review completely ignores. Windows RT forces you to use a tablet in landscape mode (hence more room for the Snap feature) but at the price of sacrificing tremendously the usability of the system when used as a tablet (a shame when the system is supposed to be for tablets) because it's difficult to use the tablet in this mode without any attached keyboard. And by itself, Windows RT is more designed for consumption than being useful for production because of the choice of this landscape mode as default mode and also because the "Metro" interface is designed to be eye candy and only makes sense for content consumption apps. The interface is actually rather limited and constraining when it comes to have freedom in building any type of apps. So claiming that Windows RT is the first legitimately useful tablet operating system out there is at the limit of being a total troll who is disconnected from the reality. In the real world today, Windows RT is the less useful tablet OS out there not only because it lacks apps, but also it's design does everything in order that this OS is limited to content consumption.

"Every single Windows RT slate comes out of the box with Office and the ability to have multiple active application windows. It’s just a few steps ahead of competing tablet platforms at this point."

Again Office is not very useful on Windows RT, its useless in touch mode, hard to use with those Type Covers or whatever else, so it's just bad... There is absolutely not advantage over competing platforms here, absolutely none...

"From a conceptual standpoint, almost anything you can do with an iPad can be done equally well (or close) on a Windows RT tablet"

No it can't because it lacks apps and polish. The metro interface is too confusing, too busy, actually too much eye candy in order to hide the reality of an OS which is technically behind. I am amazed to see that the authors did not really point out the incredible deficiencies of the built-in apps. Mail, Messaging, Calendar lacks basic features to the point of being useless, IE 10 is buggy like the rest of the OS which often feels sluggish and lacks stability. I mean a dude in the iPhone 5 review came up with some completely baseless, unreal theory of scuffs affecting the iPhone 5, describing in length a completely baseless theory of an iPhone 5 production that the author in fact had not idea of. Like often in Anandtech and when it's about Apple, the authors go in lengthy baseless analysis that they don't have the real competence to do, but they do it anyway just to appear smarter than they are in reality. So we've got an iPhone 5 review where we were still being told about the AntennaGate, something that never existed and now also about a new Scuffgate which also does not have any real existence besides being some minor manufacturing issues on some units. Today, we've got a flawed software from Microsoft, I mean Microsoft sells you a half featured Mail app and buggy software but no word on that from the authors, no words on whatever gate. The authors of Anandtech really lacks honesty, you've got to get your ch.. together guys, really!!

"but the desktop-caliber office suite and versatile multitasking interface of Windows RT are impossible experiences to replicate on the iPad"

Oh yes sure because the iPad is not trying to run a desktop app on a touch devise. Yes indeed!!! Did you really use Office on Windows RT, honestly, say the truth? Office is unusable with fingers, it requires an atached keyboard which also is crap and comes with a completely, insanely bad trackpad. Please explain how this is supposed to be an experience that the iPad should replicate? On the other hand, iWork on iPad is a desktop caliber suite which is designed to work with touch. Which one you use?

You keep speaking about this multitasking thing like you are really trying hard to find something to like in Windows RT. The reality is that the multitasking on Windows RT works like iOS with extra poorly implemented features most of the time not very useful on a tablet screen and which forced a design decision that really messes up the ease of use of Windows RT as a tablet OS.

I always find it funny that the same person (Anand) can be accused of being both an apple fanboy and a microsoft fanboy in different articles, and sometime in the same one. This just shows you that it's only commentators like you who are one.

"...Reading this review, it strikes me that people at Anandtech either are totally biased towards Windows (which wouldn't be new, see also the Surface review) or they've never used an iPad. I put my money on the first one. Because you can't possibly claim that the iPad is less productive than a tablet with Windows RT, you really can't unless your are out of your mind...."

The only one out of their mind is you. Have you actually used Windows RT - or even Windows 8 - on a tablet? Didn't think so.

"...There is nothing that makes Windows RT more productive than iOS because you seem to have missed that it's iOS which has the productive apps today..."

I think you're confusing productivity with productive.

"...Then you are really not making sense, it's amazing. The multitasking on Windows RT is nothing better than iOS, it actually works the same way. The only thing is that it allows to put a stripped down app besides another one but this feature is not very useful on tablet screens..."

And here you manage to contradict yourself in the span of two sentences. I won't bother to pick apart the rest of the post, I'd be here all day. Next time ... think before posting and check your facts ... please?

IMHO WIndows RT on ARM is an stop-gap solution till the x86 architecture becoms power efficient to give tablet like running times. I belive Microsoft began working on Surface about two years ago & at that point of time, there was no viable competitor to ARM, in terms of power efficiency. This is the primary reason I belive Microsoft had to create an ARM version.

Several of the commentators on this site have mentioned that they see no reason to buy an ARM over x86...and it definitley makes sense. Why have an fragmented ecosystem?

I believe that as time passes on & people get used to the Modern UI & the x86 architecture catches up, Microsft would phase out their support for the ARM version.

Microsoft could have chosen to do away with the "Desktop" environment with Windows RT & created a Moder UI version of Office (I don't agree with the argument of they not having enough time...they have been at it for 2 years) but I guess they deliberately chose to retain it so that users experience the familiar environment while using their killer app in this war - Office. I think people have underestimated the importance of bundling Office with Windows RT which remediates the biggest shortcoming of Android/iOS tabletsReply

Hi, the article is nice, but I keep wondering about one thing. Why do Apple articles start with a nice and colorful image of the devices, and a lot of it's competition articles start with a smudgy ugly images or devices turned off? Maybe it's just accidental, but please give it a thought. It looks a bit like bias.Reply

...but doubtful very usable in practice. I really like the thinking behind Surface with the touch keyboard cover and other things. According to this review Windows 8 isnt that bad on tablets. I'm just gonna believe that.

However the Application load times are very, very bad. 7 sec for mail app? That is just frustrating. Just shows that ARM is still very much underpowered....Or that surface uses an extremely crappy flash storage.Reply

Funny, I thought the review was rather in favor for Microsoft. This review, and the Microsoft surface review. Both.

Anand is no dumbie.. I absolutely HATE anything Apple based on pure personal beliefs / reasoning. Yet, even I, can not deny that iOS as far as polish goes is second to none. Until now. And the hardware used is usually top quality.

At a higher cost, with less freedom, and a strangle hold on their software regime. A lot of people claim these are all problems from Microsoft. Which may be true, but Apple trumps Microsoft in computer-land tyranny. Until now.

It could be that 90% of the market will be driven to using Mint Linux x, in the not so distant future. We'll see if Microsoft gets another clue.Reply

I very much like that the on-screen keyboard has cursor keys, even if it's just left/right. It's one of the main features missing from the iOS keyboard, as precisely positioning the cursor with your finger is a huge pain.

I assume that Ctrl+Left/Right skips words, and that Shift+Left/Right can be used for selection. Does anyone know if there is a way to go up/down?

I don't like that quick access to punctuation is so limited, though.Reply

From your comments throughout the article, it's clear that you're a fan of Metro and you overlook many of the shortcomings of Windows Phone and Windows RT just because of the "smooth tiled interface". The truth is that the GUI isn't that important. It's not where you get your work done. Apps are where you work.

As you said, an ARM version of Windows is good to wake Intel from their slumber and get some competition in the low cost/low power CPU market. Intel's Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge processors get decent battery life and run 3-5x faster than the best ARM offerings to date. I get 8-10 hours of battery life out of my 17" HP Sandy Bridge notebook with the medium capacity battery. I would much rather have an x86 slate running Windows 8 with support for legacy apps. Having a half-baked version of Office on an ARM based WinRT tablet isn't much incentive to be stuck with virtually no apps.

WindowsRT feels a lot like the launch of Windows CE notebooks. Interesting form factors and improved battery life don't make up for lack of app compatibility. The value of Windows is in its huge selection of apps. Win8 Pro is taking the right approach. Similar to the transition from DOS and 16-bit to 32-bit apps with Windows 95, there needs to be a transition product (Win8 Pro) which bridges the gap between old and new. When presented with a completely new device with no legacy support and very little app support, it makes very little sense for the average user to buy it. Besides reviewers and people who have to buy the latest gadget, why should an average person want to buy WinRT? According to you, they should patiently wait for the app store to get some decent apps. That's asking too much. The smart move for the average consumer is to wait a year or so and see if developers have given any attention to Windows 8's "little brother" and published apps in both x86 and ARM versions.Reply

But the interface is how you navigate all those apps. It's legitimate to point out that WP7 and W8/RT have clearly surpassed iOS in terms of speed of navigation between things like the back button, hubs, task switcher, charms and so on. That's not a function of the tiles really - although of course the tiles are another place where MS has a much better implementation than Apple.Reply

Microsoft will just write another abstraction layer ( HAL ) for ARM. Which is most likely what they've done here.

Passed that. IF any abstraction layers need to be written for the COM model, or .NET libraries. You can rest assured Microsoft will cover that as well. If it hasnt been covered already. Which Im betting it has.

Again, this is nothing like WinCE.This is a real OS, for real end users, with a different HAL.

The biggest issue as I've stated in previous posts. Is not whether it will be easy to write applications for Windows RT. But whether software developers deem it prudent to spend thousands of dollars on Microsoft development tools( not absolutely necessary ). THEN pay Microsoft a forced 30% distribution fee. Through their app store.

For me personally. The 30% fee alone is enough for me to jump ship. And I really enjoy writing apps for Windows. We'll see how it all works out in the end.Reply

"This isn’t like Windows Phone, where we need to see whether the platform will get any market traction before predicting the growth of the app marketplace."

Market traction and app store growth don't seem to have much if any relationship with Windows Phone. WP7 hit 100,000 apps faster than either iOS or Android and has over 125,000 now. If anything, that would seem to indicate that MS really does have a lot of pull with developers independently of market share. So while I agree that the sheer number of devices will be a big draw, I'd argue that's just the cherry on top that guarantees we're going to see a ton of support really quickly for RT/Metro apps.

Obviously buying a WinRT tablet today will be pretty limiting in terms of 3rd party software, but experience from WP7 suggests this will be a very short-lived downside of the platform.Reply

Good point. I've been on Windows Phone 7.5 for a year, and have never had the problem of not being able to find an app I want. (With the exception of Pandora, the assholes. Can't even use third-party ones because they block them. But I have a Zune--I mean, Xbox Music Pass anyway. So screw Pandora.)Reply

You say it is impossible to make desktop apps, but...I read that Win RT still has PowerShell. A lot of PowerShell scripts on x86 just invoke various functions in third-party ActiveX controls, which are just x86 executable binary libraries, and that will not work on RT... but maybe at least the core MS objects still work? For example, if Windows Forms or Windows Presentation Foundation still works, then PowerShell scripts can create desktop windows with various GUI elements.And since there is an IE, maybe HTA applications work as well?Do you have some scripting geek working at AT that could test these theories out?

On another topic, I am very surprised you say there are x86 executables on your install. That is just wasted space on a device that doesn't get a large drive to begin with anyway. MS would get in serious trouble if it were true... Are you sure?

And lastly, I am curious if a Win RT device is supposed to be able to get plugged to a "real" Windows computer over USB for charging or for as a mass storage drive, for transfering files... If it is, then coudn't you also plug one RT device to another RT device? Then which one will become the "host", and which one will become the peripheral?Reply

"And lastly, I am curious if a Win RT device is supposed to be able to get plugged to a "real" Windows computer over USB for charging or for as a mass storage drive, for transfering files... If it is, then coudn't you also plug one RT device to another RT device? Then which one will become the "host", and which one will become the peripheral?"

Dude...that's deep.

(That's actually a really good question. Surface can't be charged over USB, but I don't know about other ARM devices.)Reply

i mean if someone writes an app and gives it away. there's no sideloading so if has to go through the store right?

will microsoft host it for free? if not then they're effectively killing off free software for windows are they not? at least win rt which is eventually (how they'd like) desktop windows to go too.Reply

Yes they'll host it for free. And there are many free apps already, there was a influx of apps on launch day and most reviews were done before that. They only take a percentage of the cuts from paid apps, nothing from free. Reply

I forgot one question in my previous post.How is the browser performance with many many tabs open at once? Like 20, or even 100?I sometimes use tabs in a bit weird way, ctrl+clicking possibly interesting links in some large index page to open them in a background tab for later reviewing it in more detail. Even without Flash, with IE9 starting a new process for each tab by default and a few animated gif ads and various JS scripts on each tab, it really kills Atom Netbooks and even CULV Core 2. It's probably more of a memory usage thing than a CPU thing actually... But anyway, how could that go on these new ARM devices?Reply

I'd like to know that as well. But if it kills even my Core 2 Duo, I don't expect current ARM chips to fare well with that many tabs, but I'd still like to know how it handles background tab loading. Reply

Thanks Anand for the best review of RT I've seen yet. Gives me better idea of what's to come, however it doesn't address the question should I buy Win8 for desktop? The upgrade offer ($40) is out now but I don't seen compelling reason to buy it. You mentioned in your review that Apple has their desktop computer and mobile offerings separate, but the way Win8 is being implemented it sounds like maybe they should have kept it that way.

In your review you said it was jarring how it would revert back to the desktop environment when you touched on a desktop app. It's comments like this that make me wonder why upgrade from Win 7? Are the apps that will eventually come to the desktop be all that useful? I suppose if there were a handy Calendar App that could auto-sync with my mobile device that would be nice, but there are already many apps (like Google Calendar) that I can already use to sync between mobile devices.

Your review has given a great many reasons to purchase a Surface tablet, but that's not the decision many of us are facing right now. $500 is not chump change and that doesn't even include the keyboard which is another $100. I just bought a new iPod Touch and will be using that for mobile computing since my Windows Phone 7 device is not nearly as user friendly.

I think MSFT could have kept Win8 same as Win7 with an option to run ARM apps built-in. I think this would have made more sense since they don't have too many apps to begin with. Also, I don't think these little apps, which are optimized for tablet, will necessarily give a great experience on a desktop monitor that you won't be touching.

It almost seems like MSFT is trying to encourage people to buy the tablet by frustrating them with a rough desktop experience and making it smooth on the Surface. Thank you for going over the history of MSFT's initial forays into the tablet space. It's something very few people realize. Yes, MSFT, always the innovator was the first to come out with a tablet over 10 years ago, but nobody even knew about it.

Fortunately for MSFT, there is a god (or rather, Apple) who has always been there to show them the light. Apple: "Use a touchscreen, not a stylus!" MSFT: "Ok, sorry, we thought everyone would cherish the thought of using a digital pen to interact with their tablets. Apple: "Make an App Store and sell software programs through it so people can add functionality to their devices!" MSFT: "Ok, that's a great idea, wish we thought of that." Apple: "Add a camera! People like to take photos." MSFT: "Done." Apple: "Come out with your own retail stores so you can sell to people directly!" MSFT: "Ok, we can do that." Apple: "Always remember to copy us verbatim but not too much. We don't want to have to sue you (again)." MSFT: "Ok, we'll make our products geeky instead of dead sexy how about that?"Reply

If you're already using Windows 7, chances are pretty good that you'd just be wasting money.

Windows 8 obviously was made for mobile devices. Then perhaps it will perform somewhat faster on the same hardware. But if you're looking for better gaming performance you probably will not see much of a difference there.

The app store is a terrible idea in its current incarnation. I do not know many ( any ) software developers who would be happy about paying a 30% forced fee for any software platform. These same developers who draw users en mass to an operating system by creating many, useful applications. Or, I should say *did*.Reply

where's the Wacom digitizer/pen/stylus? while so many tablets are trying to be different from others, I am surprised how few have included a functional pen for taking notes. that is really important feature for education business, and there's nothing that's really working well now. I just need Wacom Bamboo level of experience with a screen on it at a reasonable price. Reply

"The only applications that are allowed to run in desktop mode under Windows RT are Explorer, IE10, Office 2013 and the command prompt "

This will either make or break Windows RT. Also, I bet this is a form of DRM imposed by Microsoft. While not DRM per se, they get to say which application we can install on our systems. Good, or bad ? I really do not know. It really depends on how they implement their online store. As I have not used windows 8, or Win RT. However, if it is similar to the google app store. Developers are required to pay an annual $25 USD fee. Which if you ask me, is slightly detrimental to the given community. In that people will be more inclined to charge for their applications, instead of providing FOSS( free open source software ). $25 USD though, really is not all that much.

One thing I can say however. Is that Microsoft sure is pushing their latest mobile software development kits through their mailing lists. Good or bad ? Again, I do not know. I am currently with android development, and unless I see something inspirational from Microsoft. That will likely not change soon. If ever. That is, for mobile devices. On the desktop I still prefer to develop with / on Windows using the .NET base class library.Reply

I really do not think third party apps will be a problem. At least where the browser applications are concerned. With all the javascript libraries that abound now days, coupled with HTML5 and CSS3. "Offline webapps" will be easy to make, and provide a lot of possibilities. These apps, should work the same on any OS.

Native apps . . .is where Microsoft excels on the desktop At least from a developers standpoint. The .NET base class library takes a lot of work out of software development, and provides many, many useful classes. How this works, or will work cross platform from x86 to ARM I am not exactly sure. But I suspect Microsoft has it covered. As always. Having done a lot of research lately on mobile device development, I know that Microsoft is providing a lot of software development kits. Some that look extremely attractive at first look.

From a software developers standpoint. Windows 8 / Windows RT looks really attractive right now. Since the market is virtually wide open for software developers to make themselves a name.

Now do keep in mind that everything mentioned above is from a developers mindset. As a user . . . yours truly really likes to keep as much freedom as possible. How that works out again is based on how Microsoft implements their app store. Also, if Microsoft can somehow remove the mobile device from the stigma of being a toy. I think they'll have it nailed. We know the OS polish is going to be there for anything Windows lately. So it basically boils down to ( again ) good software availability.Reply

According to what I have just read. Microsoft wants a 30% fee for using their app store. From the developer . . . so yeah Microsoft can kiss my ass as far as Windows RT is concerned.

If they keep on like this, personally I do not care how much work the .NET framework saves me. I will move to another platform and write off their operating systems al together. And I know im not alone.Reply

I have one question to anybody owning Windows RT device (particualry Surface). I'm writting from Poland, and so far there is no plans for selling this device here. So I want to buy my in USA. My intention of use is 70% content consumption and 30% content creation using Office. But I need for my work Polish language. The question is - can I switch language to Polish (or ownload Polish language pack)? Reply

With WindowsRT (oh God what an awful name) they're now competing with Apple on Apple's terms, and Apple have had a 5 year head start with iOS. It's just ridiculous that they have .NET, XNA, DirectX etc at such a sweet spot right now, with so many developers on board and able to program whatever the hell they want for the OS (complete with file system!), and then they just change the game entirely by tearing x86 out and putting in what may as well be an Apple chip.

They should have come up with a better solution to use ALL existing software and their architectures with every device, not just the "Pro" version. That would've been real competition with the iPad. Imagine being able to port all Xbox live arcade games and every .NET application to the "Windows App Store"/Marketplace (whatever they're calling it). All Microsoft would have to do is verify each piece of software and then bada-bing bada-boom, you've got yourself tens of thousands of apps within the month, and an extremely easy set of tools for devs to use.

Of course, this would've required more effort on the hardware side. Maybe less battery life? A lower screen resolution? More effort on Intel's part? I really hope Windows RT falls by the wayside and Windows 8 Pro tablets become the de facto standard. I hate the idea of them throwing a decade worth of development tools out on one of their operating systems.

Android is based on Linux so iOS . That covers all Apple platform and the rest of all smartphones and tablets. Most servers are running on Linux. Not enough?

The majority of modern games played on the PC are written for this software platform ?The majority of modern games are coded for console kids(Xbox and PS3), then ported to PC.PC games market is only the niche part of games market anyway.

Ubuntu is for geeks/scientisc/developers and not for average uneduceted joes

Android uses the Linux kernel and some underlying code but it is not Linux in the way stimudent is talking about which is why we call it Android and not Linux or Android Linux.

iOS uses Darwin OS and foundations and frameworks found in Mac OS X. "Darwin is built around XNU, a hybrid kernel that combines the Mach 3 microkernel, various elements of BSD (including the process model, network stack, and virtual file system), and an object-oriented device driver API called I/O Kit.[6] The hybrid kernel design compromises between the flexibility of a microkernel and the performance of a monolithic kernel." All this came from NeXTSTEP and BSD before that. There is no Linux in iOS.Reply

Yeah notable features at least in my mind is that Android uses ( as standard ) A virtual machine to run each application. Kind of, but not the same as JRE..

Big difference from Linux just in that. The architecture is really interesting. Despite the fact that java is the primary development language used for creating apps. Unless you choose to write native C/C++, or use a third party "scripting language". Passed that I'm sure you'd be able to write standard kernel level drivers, but yeah . . .

Mono for android is particularly interesting to me, but a bit pricey.Reply

Oh and yeah to follow up on what was left out of the comments to your post.

Most network admins I know that want the least bit of hassle when dealing with servers do not always opt for Linux. Just for the sake of using Linux. These people realize that an operating system is a tool, all of which have their strong and weak points. With OSX being somewhere in the middle. My post above down to the first four lines of text were pure sarcasm. With the fifth and sixth lines being tongue in cheek.

Any operating system is only as good as the user using it. It does not matter what it is. IF the user is a dumbshit, or does not care .The given OS will probably not work optimally (ever). With varying degrees of optimal operation in between, based on how well the user understands his/her operating system.

Also, we're talking computers here, not gaming consoles. With *ALL* PC games being written on some form of a PC. For the PC. Some being Linux dev machines for cross platform development, but most being Windows / visual studio developers. Ask around the game development community sometime, and ask who uses Windows / visual studio versus Linux / eclipse or some other IDE. You'll find out for yourself. This is for a good reason too. Windows / directx being the prevalent software gaming platform. For the PC. Not to mention the fact that porting games to the xbox is fairly trivial now days. Depending on the tool set you use.

"Ubuntu is for geeks/scientisc/developers and not for average uneduceted joes"

The dearth of applications is partly blamed to Microsoft's monopolistic control, much like Apple's. If they want to catch up Apple's iPad, I suggest that they allow FLOSS software be part of the Windows RT world. Start with Firefox then move to inkscape, abiword and libreoffice.Reply

I just found this website and after reading through a few of the reviews and articles, it has jumped to the top of my bookmarks page. I was seriously considering a Surface RT and most articles I read only addressed a question or two that I might have had, while this beast of a review covered everything I could have wanted to know about it. Many thanks!Reply